Starring: Angelina Jolie, Jeffrey Donovan, John Malkovich, Michael Kelly, Jason Butler Harner, Eddie Alderson, Denis O’Hare, Gattlin Griffith. Director: Clint Eastwood.

THE PLOT: A heart-rending drama, based on shocking true events from the Los Angeles police files in the late 1920s.

Single mother Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) raises her nine-year-old son Walter (Gattlin Griffith) by working as a supervisor at the city’s telephone exchange.

One weekend, she is unexpectedly called into work and when she returns home, Walter has disappeared without trace.

After months of fearing the worst, police captain JJ Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) brings incredible news: Walter has been found safe and well in a neighbouring state and is on his way home.

Overcome with joy, Christine races to the train station only to find the boy who claims to be Walter is an impostor.

With the press swarming and police desperate for a happy ending, the mother is forced against her will to take in the child as if he were her son.

Just as all hope seems lost, local preacher Briegleb (John Malkovich) and his allies launch a campaign to help Christine expose corruption in the LAPD.

THE VERDICT: A Clint Eastwood movie with a social conscience can mean only one thing . . . time to dust off the tuxedo for another night at the Oscars.

To coin a phrase from Strictly Come Dancing’s head judge Len Goodman, if Angelina Jolie doesn’t bag her second Academy Award for this powerhouse performance, I’ll go home and pickle my walnuts.

Her sensational portrayal of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, who screams and shouts for justice, fearful of the potentially vile consequences, holds this emotional rollercoaster of a film together.

We share Christine’s sense of outrage, shedding tears as she’s consigned to a mental asylum at one point, where greasy doctor (Denis O’Hare) threatens to destroy her resolve with electro-shock therapy.

It’s an un-nerving drama, beautifully photographed and directed with Eastwood’s trademark delicate, laid-back style to reflect an era of post-war prosperity – when people could leave their doors open at night without fearing for the family silver.

Donovan is also compelling as a chauvinistic bully determined to restore his department’s tarnished reputation, and only a rather strangely cast Malkovich as a creepy, crusading man of God fails to hit the heights.

Carl Jones’ rating: 9/10

• Release Date: Wednesday 26 November 2008
• Certificate: 15
• Runtime: 141mins

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